All this talk about stare-downs and so on has brought back some unfond memories, and I thought I'd share one of them with you.
I was 27 years old, just out of the Marines (I was an MP), and I was working shifts as a security guard while waiting to get onto the local PD. I had started taking Wado Ryu karate classes and was about to earn my green belt. You might say I was a tad full of myself.
One night, I was off work and relaxing, when I heard a huge crash of broken glass outside my bedroom window.
My apartment was on the ground floor (garden level, they called it), meaning the window sills were at ground level, the floor was actually about four feet down. So I had a great view of the guy's legs who had just dumped a big cardboard box of booze bottles outside my window as he walked away. I guess the dumpster was too far for him to walk.
I threw on my field jacket and my USMC baseball cap, and tucked my Monadnock nightstick up one sleeve. I went outside and discovered that there was a large party going on in the apartment clubhouse. From what I could gather, it was for several young soldiers who just came home from the first Gulf War. There were a couple hundred people there, all my age or younger, and snot-slinging drunk, the lot of 'em.
One of the soldiers was practicing his 'kick boxing' on a drunken party-goer, and the kid he was 'practicing' on was pretty beat up, barely standing. The kicks were sloppy and worthless, but when you've got a drunken pogue to practice on...
I stood there watching him kick this kid around, and sure enough, he saw me watching him. He looked at me and I just stood and gave him the 'bad stare' from about 20 feet away. He knocked the kid over he had been kicking and came charging over to me.
I took a fighting stance and waited. He paused, saw my hat and said "Oh, hell no, we got us a Jarhead here! Who wants to help me kick his ***?"
All of a sudden, he had two buddies. They started to encircle me. Two I could deal with, three was hard. I dropped the nightstick out of my sleeve and swung it hard on friend one, to the right of me. He took it right in the face and went down. As that happened, friend number two hooked his right arm over my throat from behind and tried to pivot and throw me. I did a u-turn with the nightstick and gave him the butt end of it in the solar plexus. However, I was off-balance falling backwards and I fell onto him. He kept his hold on my neck.
I was on the ground on top of friend #2, and I turned to mount, but I was having trouble getting free of his armbar across my neck. It was now across the back of my neck, so I wasn't choking, but I could not rise, we were face to face on the ground. I also felt someone begin to pull on my nightstick, trying to twist and pull it out of my hands.
At that point, the first guy (Mister kick boxer) began to kick the back of my head repeatedly. I relaxed to let my neck absorb the impact (which was also driving my forehead into the forehead of friend #2 like those clacker balls if you remember back that far).
The kicking continued for some time, I don't know how long. Someone was still pulling at my night stick, trying to twist it out of my grasp. I knew I was in serious trouble.
Eventually, I was going to either pass out, or lose control of my nightstick. I had just busted up the face of friend #1, so I had no doubt how they were going to use it on me. I figured I was going to be dead very soon.
There was a huge crowd gathered around me, screaming and yelling. Girls were screaming about all the blood, guys were yelling for the kick boxer to kill me. Someone picked up a chunk of parking lot concrete and threw it at my head, it smashed out the headlight and part of the grill of the car myself and friend #2 had partially rolled under.
Then I felt a pair of hands scoop me up by the armpits. A very loud, deep voice, started shouting - "BACK UP! BACK THE F*#& UP!" Nobody was backing up, and I felt, rather than saw, the guy holding me up as he stared kicking while holding me. I know he hit a few guys, I heard them go 'oof' when he connected. People started backing up.
"I'm going to back up with this man, and if one of you f#@*ers comes after me, I'll kill you dead, do you understand me?"
He dragged me back about twenty feet. I got the blood out of my eyes and saw that the crowd was already vanishing. The kick boxer and his buddies were running the other way, holding the one whose face I had smacked with the nightstick.
The guy who had saved my *** pulled me to my feet and helped me get composed. He was a monstrously-large man I had never seen before, he looked to be 6-7 at the very least, and built big. I was 5-10 and weighed about 190 at the time (Lord, for those days again).
I gave him my profuse thanks and he brushed it off and said to forget it and walked away. I didn't even get his name, never saw him again at the apartment complex.
I learned a couple of good lessons that night. At least one of them was to not puff up and act the fool when I don't need to. There was no reason for me to be out there - none. There was no reason for me to be playing Billy Badass. There was no reason for me to be out there with a deadly weapon. There was no reason - period. It was stupid, testosterone-driven, and I'm glad I lived through it.
If somebody were to dump a box of busted booze bottles outside my window again, I'd call the police.
Anyway, that's my true confession, and perhaps one of the reasons why I'm loathe to fight unless I have to. I train for self-defense, but I figure my best self-defense is not having to use it.
I was 27 years old, just out of the Marines (I was an MP), and I was working shifts as a security guard while waiting to get onto the local PD. I had started taking Wado Ryu karate classes and was about to earn my green belt. You might say I was a tad full of myself.
One night, I was off work and relaxing, when I heard a huge crash of broken glass outside my bedroom window.
My apartment was on the ground floor (garden level, they called it), meaning the window sills were at ground level, the floor was actually about four feet down. So I had a great view of the guy's legs who had just dumped a big cardboard box of booze bottles outside my window as he walked away. I guess the dumpster was too far for him to walk.
I threw on my field jacket and my USMC baseball cap, and tucked my Monadnock nightstick up one sleeve. I went outside and discovered that there was a large party going on in the apartment clubhouse. From what I could gather, it was for several young soldiers who just came home from the first Gulf War. There were a couple hundred people there, all my age or younger, and snot-slinging drunk, the lot of 'em.
One of the soldiers was practicing his 'kick boxing' on a drunken party-goer, and the kid he was 'practicing' on was pretty beat up, barely standing. The kicks were sloppy and worthless, but when you've got a drunken pogue to practice on...
I stood there watching him kick this kid around, and sure enough, he saw me watching him. He looked at me and I just stood and gave him the 'bad stare' from about 20 feet away. He knocked the kid over he had been kicking and came charging over to me.
I took a fighting stance and waited. He paused, saw my hat and said "Oh, hell no, we got us a Jarhead here! Who wants to help me kick his ***?"
All of a sudden, he had two buddies. They started to encircle me. Two I could deal with, three was hard. I dropped the nightstick out of my sleeve and swung it hard on friend one, to the right of me. He took it right in the face and went down. As that happened, friend number two hooked his right arm over my throat from behind and tried to pivot and throw me. I did a u-turn with the nightstick and gave him the butt end of it in the solar plexus. However, I was off-balance falling backwards and I fell onto him. He kept his hold on my neck.
I was on the ground on top of friend #2, and I turned to mount, but I was having trouble getting free of his armbar across my neck. It was now across the back of my neck, so I wasn't choking, but I could not rise, we were face to face on the ground. I also felt someone begin to pull on my nightstick, trying to twist and pull it out of my hands.
At that point, the first guy (Mister kick boxer) began to kick the back of my head repeatedly. I relaxed to let my neck absorb the impact (which was also driving my forehead into the forehead of friend #2 like those clacker balls if you remember back that far).
The kicking continued for some time, I don't know how long. Someone was still pulling at my night stick, trying to twist it out of my grasp. I knew I was in serious trouble.
Eventually, I was going to either pass out, or lose control of my nightstick. I had just busted up the face of friend #1, so I had no doubt how they were going to use it on me. I figured I was going to be dead very soon.
There was a huge crowd gathered around me, screaming and yelling. Girls were screaming about all the blood, guys were yelling for the kick boxer to kill me. Someone picked up a chunk of parking lot concrete and threw it at my head, it smashed out the headlight and part of the grill of the car myself and friend #2 had partially rolled under.
Then I felt a pair of hands scoop me up by the armpits. A very loud, deep voice, started shouting - "BACK UP! BACK THE F*#& UP!" Nobody was backing up, and I felt, rather than saw, the guy holding me up as he stared kicking while holding me. I know he hit a few guys, I heard them go 'oof' when he connected. People started backing up.
"I'm going to back up with this man, and if one of you f#@*ers comes after me, I'll kill you dead, do you understand me?"
He dragged me back about twenty feet. I got the blood out of my eyes and saw that the crowd was already vanishing. The kick boxer and his buddies were running the other way, holding the one whose face I had smacked with the nightstick.
The guy who had saved my *** pulled me to my feet and helped me get composed. He was a monstrously-large man I had never seen before, he looked to be 6-7 at the very least, and built big. I was 5-10 and weighed about 190 at the time (Lord, for those days again).
I gave him my profuse thanks and he brushed it off and said to forget it and walked away. I didn't even get his name, never saw him again at the apartment complex.
I learned a couple of good lessons that night. At least one of them was to not puff up and act the fool when I don't need to. There was no reason for me to be out there - none. There was no reason for me to be playing Billy Badass. There was no reason for me to be out there with a deadly weapon. There was no reason - period. It was stupid, testosterone-driven, and I'm glad I lived through it.
If somebody were to dump a box of busted booze bottles outside my window again, I'd call the police.
Anyway, that's my true confession, and perhaps one of the reasons why I'm loathe to fight unless I have to. I train for self-defense, but I figure my best self-defense is not having to use it.